What work could I undertake during these years, that would fulfill my life, that would enable me to pay back the debt owed to my motherland, and to serve my fellow men ever so little...
Decolonize
Your friend mentions she's finally reading the Bhagavad Gita. You ask what sparked the interest. "Oh, this professor at NYU kept referencing it in her philosophy course. Made it sound so profound." But she's Hindu. Born in Delhi. Grew up with these stories. Yet
Editorial
The common belief is that karma is some cosmic justice. Some divine scoreboard where bad people get their comeuppance and good people win lottery tickets. You've probably nodded along to this sanitized, Westernized idiocy while sipping your 'chai tea', thinking karma works like some celestial court
Thought
The greatest trick a religion ever pulled was convincing people it wasn't a religion at all. Walk into any drawing room in Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore and mention you're proud of India's Hindu heritage. Watch the temperature drop. See the sudden interest in phones,
Dharma
Someone checks their phone and sees a friend's vacation photos. Nothing dramatic—just standard social media fare. Beach, sunset, cocktail with a tiny umbrella. But instead of scrolling past, they stop. They start calculating. How much did that trip cost? How did they get the time off? Why
Editorial
Your cousin gets into Harvard. The whole family shares the Facebook post. Your aunt calls everyone she knows. Banners are put up. And you feel it too - that swell of pride, that sense of "we made it." But here's what you don't realize
You've probably seen it. A Western pundit on Twitter, hand-wringing about "the dangerous rise of nationalism" after seeing footage of Indian students celebrating their country's space mission. An op-ed warning about "authoritarian nationalism" in Vietnam for not adopting Western-style democracy fast enough.
Editorial
There you were, scrolling through your feed, feeling good about sharing that inspiring story of Fatima Sheikh—India's pioneering Muslim woman teacher, a forgotten hero finally getting her due. You hit "share" with that warm glow of righteousness, didn't you? Because this is exactly
Theology
Why do subcontinental Muslims remain so restless, so perpetually aggrieved, even after getting exactly what they demanded? Pakistan was supposed to solve the Muslim problem. Two-nation theory, partition, separate homeland—problem solved, right? Except the problem didn't go away. If anything, it got worse. The Muslims of the
Dharma
Ancient India figured out separation of church and state three thousand years before America did. Most people think the varna system was just about "caste" hierarchy. Wrong angle entirely. Varna doesn't mean caste. The varna system was in truth, the world's first institutional framework
Decolonize
India gained independence in 1947, but Hindu temples didn't. You know how sometimes people inherit the bad habits of those who they consider their superiors without realizing it? India did that with British colonial policy, except the bad habit was seizing control of Hindu temples and the inheritance
Thought
Here's what I've been thinking about lately: we're witnessing the quiet extinction of self-determination, and most people don't even realize they're participants in their own effacement. It starts innocuously enough. You're scrolling through your feed when an algorithm
Editorial
Last week, I watched my friend Ragini—lovely person, theater professional, animal lover—post seventeen stories about a crisis she'd literally never mentioned before. Not once. In years of casual conversations, this particular injustice had never crossed her lips. But seventeen Instagram stories in four hours? She was